Escape
by Sarah the Welsh One
Summary: Xander quits Sunnydale and heads to LA after Anya's death, but escaping isn't always so easy as it seems... (AU)


ESCAPE  
  
Song by Ash  
  
When I look at myself in the mirror these days it's hard to believe that such an old face can sit on a young body. I've aged since I came here. It's not surprising: sometimes I get so low that even the hellmouth looks appealing. That feeling doesn't usually last. I saw the four people that comprised my second family die there. I don't blame myself or anything like that. Not now at least. It's just sometimes memories are a little too much. That's why I came here. What am I going to remember about this place when I move on? The smell of frying and drunken customers, primarily, and maybe the rain. I thought LA was meant to have sunshine, but I don't recall a sunny day since I got here, and that's nearly a year now. Maybe the sunny days are just easier to forget.  
  
((Can't sleep in the city, you're far away  
  
Cigarettes keep you skinny, and your mind off the rain  
  
Oh sometimes, sometimes))  
  
I work in a diner now. A horrible greasy spoon, but in this city you get what you can, when you can. I had delusions of being some kind of waiter - I always looked cool in a penguin suit - but you gotta have experience for that. Course, I was a barman once. But I was younger then, and it didn't exactly last long, did it? And there it is, stirring up the memories again. Buffy, and Willow, and...  
  
I'm not going to think about that. About any of them. Cause to have to stuff my fist in my mouth and hold back the tears is more humiliation than I can stand. Not that these people respect me, you understand; but being mostly ignored is better than being mocked every day. Which is what would happen. I got that pretty quick.  
  
It's cold outside - raining, of course - but the heat in here is almost unbearable. The heat from the frying pan and the numerous cigarettes that crowd in a hot metal ashtray is making this place into a furnace. Colette, the 'chef' (I use the term very loosely), must break the scales and with three staff crammed into a tiny kitchen space behind the counter, I can see this place killing me of asphyxiation. I'm 26, too young to die, but tell it to Willow. Or Buffy. Or Giles. Or-  
  
((Feelings are distant, I know guilt by name  
  
It was the hardest thing, seeing you slip away  
  
Oh sometimes, sometimes))  
  
"Hey, Al, you want a smoke?" Tina, the other waitress, offers me a cigarette. I gratefully slide it out of the cardboard packet and light up quickly. I hadn't realised how much I wanted one. Yes, it's still just a desire. I refuse to allow it to develop into a need just yet.  
  
Al. Alex Harris. That's who I am now. I left Xander behind when the last of them died. It's okay for me to think that way because I stay detached. No guilt, no tears, no feeling. That's Al Harris. Don't ask him when he started smoking because it brings back a memory he doesn't want to face. And he doesn't want to face much. Good ol' Al. Not much of a talker, but he can fry an egg at fifty paces. That's Al.  
  
Underneath that exterior, no doubt, lurks the weak and witty Xander Harris, but he's not waiting for a change to break out. God no. You know what? I buried Xander when I buried Anya. She was the last. I loved her so much. Xander loved her so much. Al can't love, but if he could, he would love Anya. Always.  
  
((Sometimes it happens, feelings die  
  
Whole years are lost in the blink of an eye  
  
We once had it all but events conspired  
  
Sometimes))  
  
I was once a part of something. A Scooby. In a way it strikes the taunter in me. A Scooby! How immature can you get? But in another way, a much stronger way, a part of me responds to that name still. I was a Scooby. A member of importance - an original member, no less. I thought we'd live forever, like all kids do. I couldn't foresee the end. It came so much quicker than I expected.  
  
We kind of lost our way a little when Giles died. Yeah, he was the first. Can you believe that? I mean, he was the oldest, but I always expected him to live forever. If any of us was going to kick around until the next century dawned it would be Giles. But no, one day we all went out and when we came back he was dead. The thing that seemed to be picking us off one by one left us a nice little note. "You're next." Who left it, I still don't know. But who it was for, I know that too well.  
  
Buffy's death shouldn't have shocked me. It shouldn't have shocked any of us, right? She was the Slayer, we didn't expect her to live as long as the rest of us. But if Giles' death knocked us off course a little, Buffy's blew us out of the water. Willow and Anya and I. Tara too, I guess. We clung to each other after that. Nothing to do with the supernatural world. I think Tara practised Wicca now and then, but Willow steered clear. We looked after each other. Tried to blend in with the crowd. We thought it had worked, but one day Willow wasn't there any more. They found her in a ditch. No note. We didn't need one. We knew.  
  
((I miss your warm skin, beside me at night  
  
I miss your flesh, in the dawn light  
  
Sometimes, sometimes))  
  
So, you start to live in fear. If I turn a corner will it be waiting? If I cross the road, is it hiding behind the wheel of a car? Waiting to slam into me and knock me to the ground? Am I going to come home today and find Anya dead? I thought that would be my worst moment, but it was worse when I came home and found her - not dead. Just dying. The worse thing. She was bleeding so much. I couldn't think. Couldn't stop shaking for a month afterwards. So much blood. I still  
  
see red every time I close my eyes. Red for Anya's blood. Sick.  
  
I have to rush to the bathroom to vomit in the sink. Then the urge to hurl has gone, and I just feel empty. Lonely, kind of. Something that I was part of is over. That's why I really came to LA. Not to be a different person. Not to forget the Scoobies. I never will. Just to hide. To escape. I'm a coward. You may as well know.  
  
((Sometimes it happens, feelings die  
  
Whole years are lost in the blink of an eye  
  
We once had it all but events conspired  
  
Sometimes))  
  
"Al? You going home?"  
  
I shrug on my jacket and slick back my sweat laden hair. "Yeah," I reply, heading for the door. "See you girls tomorrow."  
  
Heading out into the night, and the rain feels good. Cold. Washes away all the feelings from before and helps me be stony again. It's okay to think of Anya when I'm feeling this way. To remember her pretty face, and her shiny, soft hair. Just - well, don't think of how you feel about them, and you're fine. The tears stay back and the lump stays out of your throat. I'm fine. Just dandy.  
  
I cross the road and head down the steps from the road to my basement apartment. I live close to work. Never escaped the basement, either - I think that's one thing I'm always going to stick with. Living below ground. I'm a worm. I unlock the door with a slippery wet hand and head inside.  
  
Something's different. I feel it. I live alone and so for someone else to be here is incomprehensible. Who would break into this dump? And stick around when they saw how little it had to offer? I don't even have a TV. Not on my wages.  
  
But then things change and I'm seeing red again. I seem to be lying on the floor, and I can't get up. Then I'm looking down on myself, lying on the floor, and everyone's standing on the other side of me-on-the-floor. Anya, Giles, Buffy, Willow. They smile and Willow and Anya reach out and take one of me-standing-up's hands in their own. "Xander?" Buffy says hesitantly, and smiles at me. "Are you ready?"  
  
"What for?"  
  
"For the football game," Giles says in exasperation. "For death, of course. Are you prepared?"  
  
Of course I'm prepared. I've been waiting for this since I was twenty four, since you all started dying. You've been chipping away at me till there was hardly anything left. It took something to stab me for you to come and get me? What kind of friends are you? "Yes," I say simply. "I'm ready."  
  
Let's leave Alex behind.  
  
I never really liked him anyway.  
  
((Saturn's decline in my star sign  
  
Seasonal adjustments, stars realign  
  
Sometimes it happens, feelings die  
  
Sometimes, sometimes)) 


End file.
